WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.919 Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Church of the Advent. If we haven't met, my name is Tommy. I'm a 00:00:05.919 --> 00:00:12.320 pastor here. I would love a chance to talk after the service. We've been looking during this Advent 00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:20.760 season at the theme of renewal. Advent is a time where we prepare for Christmas, and so it's very 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:27.580 appropriate to ask why Christmas is such good news for the world. Why beyond all of the gifts and all 00:00:27.579 --> 00:00:33.859 of the friends and all of the family time and all of the food and all of the lights and all of that, 00:00:33.939 --> 00:00:39.280 why is it actually good news for the world, something that goes far beyond sentimentalism? 00:00:40.019 --> 00:00:45.239 And the reason is because life is hard. I don't have to tell you that. You look around and the 00:00:45.239 --> 00:00:50.619 world has some pretty serious problems, right? So, globally, there are things like environmental 00:00:50.619 --> 00:01:00.039 degradation or natural disasters or poverty or war. Personally, if we think about our own lives, 00:01:00.099 --> 00:01:08.039 we struggle with things like seasonal depression or loneliness or resentment and alienation even 00:01:08.039 --> 00:01:17.799 within our own families, job stress, resentment toward our bosses, all kinds of personal struggles 00:01:17.799 --> 00:01:23.000 that I think more often than not take up the vast majority of our emotional energy. And so, 00:01:23.099 --> 00:01:29.060 we've been thinking about the brokenness of the world, and we would say as Christians that all of 00:01:29.060 --> 00:01:37.219 these problems, all that is wrong with the world globally and personally stems from four kinds of 00:01:37.219 --> 00:01:45.039 relationship that are broken. And we can think of those four relationships like four concentric circles. 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:53.180 At the very center, we have a broken relationship with God. And then radiating out from that, 00:01:53.300 --> 00:01:59.820 other kinds of relationships become subsequently broken. Our relationship with ourself is broken. 00:02:00.100 --> 00:02:06.760 There are disconnects and fragmentations within us, parts of ourselves that we don't fully understand, 00:02:07.020 --> 00:02:12.700 that we can't fully control. Then our relationship with other people is broken. 00:02:12.699 --> 00:02:19.019 And then finally, our relationship with the natural world is broken. And so, one of the reasons we 00:02:19.019 --> 00:02:26.679 believe Christmas is such good news is that we believe that Jesus came in order to heal and restore 00:02:26.679 --> 00:02:33.899 all of these relationships. And so, we talked last week about how Jesus restores and renews our 00:02:33.899 --> 00:02:39.019 relationship with God. That is spiritual renewal. And this week, we're going to focus on that next 00:02:39.020 --> 00:02:45.820 circle out how God renews the relationship that we have with ourselves. And so, we're going to be 00:02:45.820 --> 00:02:52.080 talking about the theme of spiritual renewal. And to do that, we're going to be looking at Ephesians 00:02:52.080 --> 00:03:01.120 chapter 4, verses 17 through 24. If you want to go to a place in Scripture that really has a lot to offer 00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:08.020 when it comes to personal change, how people change, how people are renewed, there are a few better 00:03:08.020 --> 00:03:13.320 places than this chapter, Ephesians chapter 4. And so, we're going to look at personal renewal, what that 00:03:13.320 --> 00:03:21.260 means. And what it shows us is that personal renewal is at least two things. Personal renewal is an all-or-nothing 00:03:21.260 --> 00:03:31.460 commitment that we make. And it's also an inside-out change or process that we experience. So, it's an all-or-none 00:03:31.460 --> 00:03:38.939 commitment, and it's an inside-out change, according to Paul. Let's pray, and then we'll dive in. 00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:46.280 Lord, we thank You for Your Word, and we come as people who know, more or less, that we need to be 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:52.840 renewed. Lord, we know that there are times that we say or do things that we regret, times that we treat 00:03:52.840 --> 00:04:00.740 people in ways that don't reflect how we feel toward them, times where we catch ourselves feeling 00:04:00.740 --> 00:04:05.539 things that we never thought we would feel. Lord, we know that there are ways in which we feel 00:04:05.539 --> 00:04:13.900 disconnected. Lord, ways in which our past may haunt us, ways in which we feel out of control over what 00:04:13.900 --> 00:04:19.579 is happening to us. And so, Lord, in all of these ways, we pray that Your Word would knit us back 00:04:19.579 --> 00:04:27.780 together. Your Word is that which took chaos and transformed it into an ordered, flourishing world. 00:04:27.879 --> 00:04:37.040 And so, we pray that You would take the chaos inside us and speak and make it ordered so that 00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:44.700 life can flourish within. We pray this in Your Son's holy name. Amen. So, first of all, when we talk 00:04:44.700 --> 00:04:51.060 about personal renewal and we begin to ask this passage, Paul, what personal renewal means, we see 00:04:51.060 --> 00:04:58.640 that it is, in one sense, an all-or-nothing commitment that we make. And so, we have to distinguish the way 00:04:58.640 --> 00:05:04.379 Christians talk about personal renewal from the way many people in our culture would talk about 00:05:04.379 --> 00:05:12.759 self-development or self-improvement. Self-improvement is something that our culture, I think, is obsessed 00:05:12.759 --> 00:05:22.000 with. If you look at the self-improvement industry, it's a $10 billion industry. $10 billion industry, 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:29.639 the kind of self-help, self-improvement market. So, you have books, you have podcasts, you have online 00:05:29.639 --> 00:05:37.860 classes, master classes, you have wellness apps, you have life coaching and gurus who offer themselves 00:05:37.860 --> 00:05:45.459 as life coaches, you have myriad diet and exercise plans, you have personality inventories like the 00:05:45.459 --> 00:05:53.779 Myers-Briggs and, yes, the great golden calf, the Enneagram, right? We have all of these tools 00:05:53.779 --> 00:06:05.059 for self-improvement. And all of these, all of these are aimed at helping us identify and then tweak 00:06:05.059 --> 00:06:13.219 and sort of develop different aspects and facets of our lives, right? So, think about your career, 00:06:13.799 --> 00:06:19.819 think about your family life, think about your social life, think about your personal wellness, 00:06:19.819 --> 00:06:27.040 think about the volunteering that you do in some of your free time, think about your creative outlets, 00:06:27.300 --> 00:06:33.360 think about your recreational activities, right? All of these are different aspects of life. And 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:40.360 self-improvement is about tweaking all of those different things so that you can become the best 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:48.699 version of you. People have even started thinking about marriage in this way. There's a book that came 00:06:48.699 --> 00:06:54.459 out a few years ago by a psychologist named Eli Finkel, and he says in his book, it came out in, 00:06:54.579 --> 00:07:00.159 I think, 2017, he says, you know, the way we think about marriage has radically shifted over the last 00:07:00.159 --> 00:07:08.620 few decades. Marriage is no longer seen by more and more people. It's no longer seen as a lifelong 00:07:08.620 --> 00:07:17.259 self-donating commitment that you make to another person. It's more and more seen as simply one of many 00:07:17.259 --> 00:07:25.959 tools for self-improvement. And so, it's okay to marry somebody for a while if you believe that might 00:07:25.959 --> 00:07:34.139 help you in your journey of becoming the best version of you. And so, because of our focus on 00:07:34.139 --> 00:07:39.420 and obsession with self-improvement, it's not surprising that many people think of religion this 00:07:39.420 --> 00:07:45.219 way. It's a tool for self-improvement. And so, for more and more people, and I talk to people like 00:07:45.220 --> 00:07:53.420 this all the time, it doesn't matter as much whether a religion is true. What matters is whether 00:07:53.420 --> 00:07:58.860 or not we see it as being beneficial to our self-improvement project, right? So, I'll talk 00:07:58.860 --> 00:08:03.800 to people who say, oh, that's great that you're religious, you know. I read that science has shown 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:09.180 that prayer and meditation, that those things are beneficial to your health. They're good ways of 00:08:09.180 --> 00:08:15.620 dealing with anxiety and depression and reducing stress in your life. And so, I pray too. And I say, 00:08:15.699 --> 00:08:20.240 well, who do you pray to? And they say, well, that doesn't really matter. It's just the act of sitting 00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:24.720 down and praying that's beneficial, right? That's the attitude that more and more people are taking 00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:31.819 toward religions in general. And so, it's not surprising then that people increasingly feel free 00:08:31.819 --> 00:08:38.419 to simply pick and choose which aspects of various faiths they like. It's kind of Chipotle metaphysics, 00:08:38.419 --> 00:08:46.079 if you will. So, people, you know, they say, well, if this aspect of this faith makes me feel good 00:08:46.079 --> 00:08:54.019 about myself, if it inspires me, if it helps me in my personal wellness, then it stays. But if this 00:08:54.019 --> 00:09:01.860 costs me or if it challenges me or if it forces me to rethink parts of my life, if it makes me feel 00:09:01.860 --> 00:09:09.080 bad feelings or sad feelings, then we're going to let that part go. So, that's the self-improvement 00:09:09.080 --> 00:09:14.860 approach to religion. What I want to make clear is when the Bible talks about personal renewal, it's 00:09:14.860 --> 00:09:22.320 something completely different. It's all or nothing. And you see that first in John chapter 3, the gospel 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:28.720 reading that we had. A man named Nicodemus is a well-known, successful man in the community. He's a leader of the 00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:35.940 Jews and a Pharisee, but he visits Jesus at night in secret. He doesn't want his friends to know that 00:09:35.940 --> 00:09:44.160 he's coming to Jesus. And he's probably hoping to get a little inside access to Jesus. He's probably 00:09:44.160 --> 00:09:50.480 found him compelling, and he's probably hoping for a little bit of life coaching from Jesus, maybe some 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:57.740 tips on how to live a better life. And Jesus seems to know this because Jesus catches him completely by 00:09:57.740 --> 00:10:04.200 surprise. In verse 3, Jesus responds to Nicodemus by saying, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is 00:10:04.200 --> 00:10:09.779 born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And it's very clear from Nicodemus' response that he finds 00:10:09.779 --> 00:10:16.019 this as shocking as we would. He says, how is that even possible to be born again, to start over from 00:10:16.019 --> 00:10:23.840 square one in your life? But what Jesus is trying to make clear is this point. Jesus did not take on 00:10:23.840 --> 00:10:30.519 flesh in order to become part of our self-improvement project. That's not the purpose of the incarnation. 00:10:32.300 --> 00:10:40.620 Jesus was born in the flesh so that we would have a chance to be born in the Spirit. That's why Jesus 00:10:40.620 --> 00:10:48.980 came, to offer us the opportunity for rebirth. And so, here's how Paul puts it in our passage. He says 00:10:48.980 --> 00:10:57.180 in chapter 4, verse 22, that Jesus is essentially calling you to put off your old self, which belongs 00:10:57.180 --> 00:11:04.220 to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit 00:11:04.220 --> 00:11:10.500 of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness 00:11:10.500 --> 00:11:19.259 holiness. All right, hopefully it's pretty clear that this is not about tweaking yourself here or 00:11:19.259 --> 00:11:26.820 there. It's a complete and total overhaul. In, you know, real estate terms, it's a gut job 00:11:26.820 --> 00:11:34.639 of your entire identity. And so, he says, first of all, put off the old self. And this is, the verb tense 00:11:34.639 --> 00:11:40.440 here implies a past completed action. This is something that you decide once and for all to do. You put off 00:11:40.440 --> 00:11:46.960 the old self. And what's interesting is, if you notice, at the beginning of our passage, Paul says 00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:54.100 this, now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. And for 00:11:54.100 --> 00:11:59.200 a long time I read this, for years I read this and thought it was talking about, that he was talking 00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:03.880 to Jews. He's saying to the Jews, don't be like those Gentiles over there. But what you realize if you 00:12:03.880 --> 00:12:09.480 go back earlier in Ephesians is, he's actually talking to Gentiles. So, he's writing to Gentiles and saying, 00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:15.340 no longer walk as the Gentiles do. So, what does this mean? It means that the people he's talking 00:12:15.340 --> 00:12:23.680 to have so put off the old self that they put off their Gentileness and they've become something 00:12:23.680 --> 00:12:32.000 altogether new. That's no longer what defines them. And then he says, put on the new self created after 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:37.139 the likeness of God. And of course, the one who bears the likeness of God is Jesus Christ. 00:12:38.700 --> 00:12:44.740 So, he's saying the main thing that defines you now is your relationship to God in Jesus Christ. 00:12:44.860 --> 00:12:48.860 And you say, well, what is that relationship? And that's what he said in the first few chapters of 00:12:48.860 --> 00:12:56.240 Ephesians, like chapter 1 verse 5. In love, he chose to adopt us as his children. So, put on your 00:12:56.240 --> 00:13:04.159 adoptedness. Put off your Gentileness and put on your adoptedness. So, when you think about yourself 00:13:04.159 --> 00:13:09.159 in the late hours before you fall asleep, when you wake up early in the morning and you're stressing 00:13:09.159 --> 00:13:14.440 about your life and you're stressing about the broken relationships in your family or you're 00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:18.960 stressing over the person who walked out of your life and you're tempted to put that sense of 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:27.000 rejection on, he says, no, put on your adoptedness. The God who created the unfathomable universe 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:33.960 chose to adopt you to make you his child. Chapter 2 verse 19, you're no longer strangers and aliens, 00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:40.019 but you're fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. God has done the 00:13:40.019 --> 00:13:47.879 unimaginable to give you a place at the table. Put that on, is what Paul say. So, the kind of personal 00:13:47.879 --> 00:13:59.679 renewal that Jesus offers through Christmas is all or nothing. We cannot pick and choose. It's not a buffet. 00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:07.580 Every aspect of our life then has to be re-examined through the lens of the gospel. And if you think 00:14:07.580 --> 00:14:17.059 about yourself, it's not a static thing. You are actually a nexus of many different group affiliations 00:14:17.059 --> 00:14:25.179 and associations and labels. You are a kind of irreducible complexity of labels and group 00:14:25.179 --> 00:14:31.299 affiliations. And some of those are more central to who you are and some of those are more peripheral 00:14:31.299 --> 00:14:36.879 to who you are. But if you think about your family identity, some of us have a very strong family 00:14:36.879 --> 00:14:42.619 identity. If you think about your social identity, if you think about your birthplace and, you know, 00:14:42.620 --> 00:14:48.360 where you grew up and maybe that's a strong source of pride for you, right, like people from Texas, 00:14:49.060 --> 00:14:54.560 right, that's a huge part of who they are, right? It's their identity, right? Think about your ethnic 00:14:54.560 --> 00:15:00.480 identity. Think about your sexual identity. Think about your professional identity in your career. All of 00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:07.740 these things are part of who we are. And what Paul is saying is all of that needs to be re-examined 00:15:07.740 --> 00:15:15.899 through the lens of the gospel. And listen, that can be challenging in life because as you become 00:15:15.899 --> 00:15:26.220 more connected to and defined by Jesus and the people of Jesus, as you put off your Gentileness, 00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:33.680 whatever that is for you, the more you're defined by Jesus and His people, the less connected you will 00:15:33.679 --> 00:15:42.379 feel to those other groups. And that distance can be very strange to experience. So, the more you 00:15:42.379 --> 00:15:48.000 draw close to Jesus, you may actually feel more distance from your family. Because some of you 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:53.739 grew up in families where they're not believers. Many of you did. Families of a very cultural form of 00:15:53.739 --> 00:15:58.539 Christianity, very nominal Christianity, or no faith at all, or you're from a family of a very 00:15:58.539 --> 00:16:03.959 completely different faith. And you know that the closer you get to Jesus and His people, the more 00:16:03.959 --> 00:16:10.860 distance there is, the less in common you have with your family. This can happen with your racial or 00:16:10.860 --> 00:16:16.740 ethnic group. You sort of find yourself in this in-between place where there's less identification 00:16:16.740 --> 00:16:22.639 with this group because you're moving closer to Jesus, right? Or your political party. You have less 00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:28.399 and less in common with others in your political party. You don't feel like you fit in as well. 00:16:28.480 --> 00:16:33.179 You're somewhere in between. You feel like a stranger in an exile because you're identifying 00:16:33.179 --> 00:16:39.080 more and more with Jesus. It creates that kind of distance. And you know, if we look at Jesus, 00:16:39.220 --> 00:16:45.139 what you see is this. Jesus does not fit in very well. If you look at Jesus in His life and ministry, 00:16:45.299 --> 00:16:50.559 Jesus did not fit our categories very well. Every time you're tempted to say He's a conservative, 00:16:50.559 --> 00:16:56.500 He does something that seems pretty liberal, right? Every time He seems to do something that 00:16:56.500 --> 00:17:02.159 makes you think He's on this side of the issue, He kind of says or does something that makes you think, 00:17:02.239 --> 00:17:08.220 well, maybe He also kind of is coming from this perspective. You know, there are some times in 00:17:08.220 --> 00:17:12.359 which He seems to strongly reinforce the centrality of Jewish identity. And there are other times when He 00:17:12.359 --> 00:17:18.220 seems to completely overturn Jewish identity. And so it's hard to see how Jesus fits our categories, 00:17:18.220 --> 00:17:24.120 and it's because He doesn't. And what that means is the more that we look like Jesus, 00:17:24.400 --> 00:17:32.039 the less we will fit in to groups and categories in this world, right? So personal renewal recognizes 00:17:32.039 --> 00:17:37.200 this, and it means making an all-or-nothing commitment to Jesus, no matter what that means 00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:42.660 for these other groups and affiliations. It's an all-or-nothing commitment. 00:17:42.660 --> 00:17:48.820 The second thing that it means is it means an inside-out change. So the all-or-nothing, 00:17:48.980 --> 00:17:52.720 put off the old self, put on the new, that's a once-and-for-all decision that you make. 00:17:53.240 --> 00:17:55.620 Past completed action, that's what those verbs entail. 00:17:57.440 --> 00:18:02.019 But right in between Paul's command to put off and to put on, he says, 00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:11.460 be renewed in the spirit of your minds. And the tense here is an ongoing process that is happening 00:18:11.460 --> 00:18:16.920 continually until the next life. It goes on and on and on. We are continually, in other words, 00:18:17.140 --> 00:18:23.180 being renewed in the spirit of our minds. And you say, well, what is the spirit of my mind? And I 00:18:23.180 --> 00:18:27.840 would say that's more than just how you think. It's more than just your attitudes and assumptions. 00:18:28.440 --> 00:18:36.180 The spirit of your mind is the very center of your affections. It's the very heart of your desires. 00:18:36.180 --> 00:18:43.160 All right. So psychologists tell us, and this is kind of a consensus among a lot of people, 00:18:43.720 --> 00:18:50.200 that the brain has two independent systems that are always at work at the same time. 00:18:50.940 --> 00:19:00.440 First, you have within you your kind of emotional intuitive side, your emotional instinctive intuitive 00:19:00.440 --> 00:19:06.180 side. And this is maybe even subconscious or unconscious. You're not always even aware that 00:19:06.180 --> 00:19:11.799 it's there. And then you have your rational thinking side. This is the part of you that 00:19:11.799 --> 00:19:17.440 processes and analyze and thinks, right? So these two have the emotional side and the rational side. 00:19:18.120 --> 00:19:23.820 And Jonathan Haidt, who's a psychologist at NYU, says that our emotional side is kind of like an 00:19:23.820 --> 00:19:29.940 elephant. So that emotional instinctive part of you is like an elephant. And then he says that the 00:19:29.940 --> 00:19:35.420 rational thinking side of us is like a little rider that's perched on top of the elephant. 00:19:36.420 --> 00:19:41.860 Right? Now think about this. The little rider sits on top of the elephant and holds the reins 00:19:41.860 --> 00:19:50.120 and seems to be in control. But the point of the metaphor is to understand that the rider's control 00:19:50.120 --> 00:19:57.600 over the elephant is very precarious. Right? Because as long as the rider and the elephant want to go in 00:19:57.599 --> 00:20:04.359 the same direction, no problem at all. The rider can feel like they're in control. But as soon as the 00:20:04.359 --> 00:20:10.059 elephant wants to go in a different direction, it becomes very apparent that the rider is powerless 00:20:10.059 --> 00:20:14.740 to stop it. Right? Anytime the elephant and the rider want to go in two different directions, 00:20:15.119 --> 00:20:22.219 the elephant will win every single time. Because the elephant is vastly more powerful than the rider. 00:20:22.220 --> 00:20:29.940 And so ideally in life, you want the elephant and the rider moving in the same direction. In other 00:20:29.940 --> 00:20:34.620 words, you want all parts of you aligned. I'm thinking I want to go this way. I've analyzed the 00:20:34.620 --> 00:20:38.860 situation and it makes the most sense to go this way. And then my heart wants to go this way. My 00:20:38.860 --> 00:20:44.700 instincts want to go this way. My body wants to go this way. Right? Those subconscious drives want to go 00:20:44.700 --> 00:20:52.180 this way. And so ideally you have alignment. But that's not always the case. It's not always the 00:20:52.180 --> 00:21:00.080 case. This is what Paul is getting at. He says, you know, the rider can choose to put off the old 00:21:00.080 --> 00:21:05.039 self and put on the new self. I want to leave my former way of life. I want to choose Jesus. 00:21:06.259 --> 00:21:13.980 But the spirit of our minds is the elephant. And Paul says, it's not enough for the rider to choose 00:21:13.980 --> 00:21:21.759 Jesus. You have to get the elephant, which is the emotional instinctive side of you, moving toward 00:21:21.759 --> 00:21:28.839 Jesus as well. You have to have that kind of holistic alignment. And this is why so many of us, 00:21:29.059 --> 00:21:36.319 and I hope I'm not alone in this, this is why we have felt that disconnect inside where my mind wants 00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:42.360 to follow Jesus, but my heart, my affections, my desires are moving in a completely different 00:21:42.359 --> 00:21:47.259 direction. And that disconnect can feel like it is really tearing you apart. It can really pull you 00:21:47.259 --> 00:21:54.979 into pieces. It's very uncomfortable to feel that way. And this is why Paul says in Ephesians chapter 00:21:54.979 --> 00:22:02.479 4, 17, he says, you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. Right? 00:22:02.539 --> 00:22:08.819 Think of the little rider sitting up there powerless to do anything. Right? Your mind is pretty futile at the 00:22:08.819 --> 00:22:13.240 end of the day when it comes to where you're headed. He says, they're darkened in their understanding. 00:22:13.399 --> 00:22:18.220 They're alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness 00:22:18.220 --> 00:22:24.359 of heart. It's a heart issue. They've become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, 00:22:24.819 --> 00:22:30.379 greedy to practice every kind of impurity. Now, it's easy to read this at a first pass and think, 00:22:30.500 --> 00:22:34.599 why does he have to be so moralistic and judgmental and say they're doing all of these bad things? 00:22:34.599 --> 00:22:40.679 It has very little to do with that. What we have to realize is that there are some choices and 00:22:40.679 --> 00:22:48.139 behaviors that we engage in that soften our hearts. They open our hearts up to the truth and the love 00:22:48.139 --> 00:22:56.039 of Jesus Christ. They connect us into the life of God. They bring us more alive. And there are other 00:22:56.039 --> 00:23:02.719 choices that we make and behaviors that we engage in that harden our hearts, that close us off to the 00:23:02.720 --> 00:23:09.680 love and the truth of Christ, that deaden our hearts. And Paul says, hardened hearts, and that 00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:15.140 word can also be translated petrify. Right? So, your heart becomes petrified. And you know, something 00:23:15.140 --> 00:23:21.519 that's petrified is not supposed to be stone. It's supposed to be a living thing. It's living tissue 00:23:21.519 --> 00:23:27.160 that has become stone. And he says, so these things that you're doing, they're turning the living 00:23:27.160 --> 00:23:34.220 tissue of your heart into stone, making it less receptive. And so, this is why he's so concerned. 00:23:35.040 --> 00:23:39.500 And he says, when you do this, you're cutting yourself off from the life of God. 00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:46.420 So, some choices that we make, you know, your mind has chosen Jesus. And he says, but some of the things 00:23:46.420 --> 00:23:51.400 that you do with your body, some of the things that you do with your heart are going to coax the 00:23:51.400 --> 00:23:56.780 elephant to move in that direction as well. But some of the choices that we make are actually going 00:23:56.780 --> 00:24:00.400 to get the elephant moving in another direction. They're going to start to tear you apart. 00:24:01.840 --> 00:24:07.780 So, you know, think about when you feel lonely or when you feel depressed, right? It gets cold, 00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:15.280 it starts to rain more, it's dark, and you start to feel lonely or depressed or that kind of, you know, 00:24:15.280 --> 00:24:20.120 some of us just really struggle during the wintertime around here. And so, what do you do when you feel 00:24:20.119 --> 00:24:27.539 lonely or depressed or just tired all the time? Well, maybe some of us just start drinking more. 00:24:28.459 --> 00:24:32.759 Maybe you start drinking too much. Or maybe you go out and you just eat a bunch of junk food. 00:24:34.119 --> 00:24:38.919 Or maybe, you know, I used to joke about certain days that were stressful being Five Guys days, 00:24:39.199 --> 00:24:45.159 because all I wanted to do was to rush out on foot if necessary to the nearest Five Guys and just crush 00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:52.279 burgers and fries until I felt better. Maybe you spend a couple of hours looking at porn. I mean, 00:24:52.320 --> 00:24:55.960 maybe it's been, you know, months and months and months or years and years, but all of a sudden, 00:24:56.040 --> 00:25:01.580 you find yourself doing it, right? Maybe you kind of give in to the temptation to go on social media 00:25:01.580 --> 00:25:08.360 and stalk your ex and to figure out what they're up to. Maybe you go online and you start buying 00:25:08.359 --> 00:25:14.319 things that you don't really need. You're kind of on Amazon. And you kind of zone out. An hour later, 00:25:14.439 --> 00:25:21.419 you've spent hundreds of dollars on junk, right? And so, when we do these things, what we're really 00:25:21.419 --> 00:25:28.119 doing is we're teaching the elephant that this is the best way to deal with those bad feelings. 00:25:29.099 --> 00:25:36.579 You're teaching that emotional, subconscious, intuitive part of yourself, when we feel this, 00:25:36.579 --> 00:25:42.679 this is what we do. And this will maybe not make us feel better, but it will at least make us feel 00:25:42.679 --> 00:25:51.119 less. And maybe that's okay. Maybe that's the best we can hope for. And the rider is saying the whole 00:25:51.119 --> 00:25:55.480 time, you know, the rider's like, I know I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be looking at this. I 00:25:55.480 --> 00:25:59.619 shouldn't be buying this. I shouldn't be wondering what my ex is doing. I shouldn't be doing all, I 00:25:59.619 --> 00:26:03.779 should stop with this drink. I should not have another drink. The rider is saying all of this, 00:26:03.779 --> 00:26:10.480 and the elephant's like, mm-hmm, okay, all right. And then the elephant's doing exactly what it wants 00:26:10.480 --> 00:26:18.220 to do. And so, what Paul is saying is the more this happens, and the more the rider experiences 00:26:18.220 --> 00:26:26.920 that powerlessness, we become, as he says, callous. The rider just says, I'm exhausted. I'm done trying, 00:26:27.619 --> 00:26:33.599 right? Because you give yourself up to sensuality. And so, your heart becomes hardened and petrified, 00:26:33.599 --> 00:26:40.980 and for believers, your faith becomes more and more empty and hollow. It's interesting, 00:26:41.119 --> 00:26:49.500 when some people go through or express doubt in their faith, or when some people, not all the time, 00:26:49.639 --> 00:26:53.240 you know, we've talked about how deconstruction can be a really good thing, but some people, 00:26:53.359 --> 00:26:56.219 when they go through what they think is a deconstruction of their faith, 00:26:56.220 --> 00:27:02.960 sometimes it's because of intellectual reasons. But in my experience, you know, over the last 00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:10.539 roughly decade, in my experience, these things are more often because the elephant and the rider have 00:27:10.539 --> 00:27:17.100 become disconnected. They've been going in different directions for so long that the rider has finally 00:27:17.100 --> 00:27:22.180 given up. Like, the rider is just powerlessly pointing to Jesus. The elephant's going in this 00:27:22.180 --> 00:27:27.860 direction, and the rider's like, my arms are tired. These reins are doing nothing. And the rider's just 00:27:27.860 --> 00:27:34.240 ready to kind of throw in the towel. And so, when someone comes and says, I'm not sure if I'm still 00:27:34.240 --> 00:27:38.380 a Christian. I'm full of doubts. I'm not sure what I believe anymore. Does the Bible really say this? 00:27:38.440 --> 00:27:42.500 Can we really trust Scripture? And all of those doubts begin. Maybe it's intellectual, and it's worth 00:27:42.500 --> 00:27:46.500 saying. It's worth saying, so what are your intellectual obstacles, and what are the challenges that you're 00:27:46.500 --> 00:27:54.839 really running into? But it's also worth asking, who are you sleeping with? You know? Who have you 00:27:54.839 --> 00:28:01.660 given your heart to who doesn't give a rip about Jesus? How much are you drinking these days? 00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:06.859 How much time are you spending zoned out online, you know, staring at your phone? 00:28:09.519 --> 00:28:16.079 Are you eating well? Are you getting enough sleep? You know, where's the elephant in all of this? 00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:22.140 Maybe this is the rider just trying to justify the elephant. You know, there's an old Anglican 00:28:22.140 --> 00:28:27.519 saying, what the heart desires, the will chooses, and the mind justifies. You know, so most often, 00:28:28.220 --> 00:28:35.440 my heart is desiring something over here. The rider has realized it's hopeless to try to change the 00:28:35.440 --> 00:28:40.339 elephant's direction. And so, the rider says, well, maybe I can make the best of this. Okay, we're heading 00:28:40.339 --> 00:28:45.640 in this direction. Maybe I can start to just, maybe the Bible doesn't really have anything to offer me now. 00:28:45.640 --> 00:28:50.980 Maybe we can't really trust Scripture. Maybe all of these doctrines are outdated and irrelevant to 00:28:50.980 --> 00:28:55.000 modern life. Maybe I should be listening to these people who are saying it all needs to evolve and 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.340 change. Right? So, you begin to the riders and say, hey, you know, my life is going to be so much 00:28:59.340 --> 00:29:03.300 easier if I'm not constantly pulling the reins. My life is going to be so much easier if I can't align 00:29:03.299 --> 00:29:10.220 the elephant with me. I can align myself with the elephant. And this is often how it goes. 00:29:11.180 --> 00:29:18.839 This is not to be judgmental. It's just to figure out what behaviors in our lives are coaxing the 00:29:18.839 --> 00:29:26.079 elephant to chase them down. And another way of putting it is this. You can't experience a life-giving, 00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:31.879 vitalized relationship with Jesus if you're simultaneously giving yourself over to things 00:29:31.879 --> 00:29:38.659 that deaden and harden your heart. You can't do it. So, this is why we need the gospel. 00:29:39.839 --> 00:29:44.599 You know, the gospel is good news for the head and for the heart. It's good news for the rider 00:29:44.599 --> 00:29:51.539 and for the elephant. The gospel is good news for the rider because of this reason. For all of us who 00:29:51.539 --> 00:29:55.899 have ever felt that disconnect, where we wanted to choose Jesus but then we ended up going in this 00:29:55.899 --> 00:30:03.079 direction, and that feeling that you have of just shame and failure and futility and guilt and, you know, 00:30:03.079 --> 00:30:08.240 all of that. You know, the gospel says you don't have to sit in that shame and guilt. The gospel says this 00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:14.339 is exactly why Jesus came, because we are disconnected. Right? If we could always align our hearts and minds 00:30:14.339 --> 00:30:19.579 and go in the direction that we want to go, we wouldn't need Jesus. You know, so when Paul says that which 00:30:19.579 --> 00:30:23.899 I want to do, I don't do, and that which I don't want to do, I do, that's the rider and the elephant 00:30:23.899 --> 00:30:29.899 going in two different directions. That's why Jesus came, so that he could speak to our minds and our 00:30:29.899 --> 00:30:35.379 hearts and say, this is why I died on the cross, because this is the reality of the human condition. 00:30:37.359 --> 00:30:41.759 And so, we don't have to sit in that shame or guilt. God's eternal nature is always to have mercy. 00:30:42.379 --> 00:30:49.299 And then beyond that, Jesus assures the rider that when you come to me and when I forgive you and when 00:30:49.299 --> 00:30:56.339 God adopts you, I give you my spirit. And the entire work of the spirit is to, over time, bring our 00:30:56.339 --> 00:31:03.480 hearts in line with our minds. It's to make us whole. It's to make us integrated. So, this is the 00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:09.839 ministry of the spirit. And then the gospel is also good news for the elephant, because the elephant, 00:31:10.039 --> 00:31:16.319 that emotional part of you, the elephant was made to feast on the love and the goodness and the beauty 00:31:16.319 --> 00:31:24.839 of God, not on the garbage that we so often feed it. And so, the things that we most want, which are 00:31:24.839 --> 00:31:32.960 things like love and belonging and meaning and purpose, can never be found in food or in shopping 00:31:32.960 --> 00:31:38.539 or in sex or in any of these other things. The only place you're truly going to find those things is in 00:31:38.539 --> 00:31:47.240 Jesus Christ. And once the elephant in you gets a taste of that, once it tastes that, it will become 00:31:47.240 --> 00:31:54.659 more and more willing to go where the rider wants to go, which is to Jesus. And the gospel says that 00:31:54.659 --> 00:32:01.299 Jesus died for us because of his love for us, because God wanted to adopt us as his children. And that love 00:32:01.299 --> 00:32:08.339 will satisfy that hunger of that elephant if you let it. But you have to give it a chance. 00:32:10.339 --> 00:32:18.480 So, this is why it's so crucial for us to worship every week, to gather together like we're doing. 00:32:19.339 --> 00:32:26.799 This is why it's so crucial for you to find times and ways, if it's listening to a devotional online or 00:32:26.799 --> 00:32:31.940 a podcast, if it's time in the morning when you can read Scripture and pray, if it's on your commute 00:32:31.940 --> 00:32:37.139 to or from, if it's right before you go to bed, finding times. We don't build these disciplines 00:32:37.139 --> 00:32:44.119 into our lives because God will be disappointed in us if we don't. God delights in you always because 00:32:44.119 --> 00:32:53.879 you're his children. He's not angry or frustrated with you when he sees you neglecting these things. 00:32:53.880 --> 00:32:59.480 The reason it's so important is because we have to retrain the elephant part of ourselves 00:32:59.480 --> 00:33:04.120 and show that part of ourselves where the true food and drink can be found. 00:33:05.060 --> 00:33:12.180 So, instead of shopping or going online or eating, you know, running down to five guys and numbing out 00:33:12.180 --> 00:33:18.400 or drinking too much, maybe one night instead you take that lonely or depressed feeling and you open 00:33:18.400 --> 00:33:27.019 into Psalm 42 and you pray with the psalmist, why are you cast down, O my soul? And you allow the 00:33:27.019 --> 00:33:35.280 language of Scripture to both give expression and voice to your pain and then to preach God's love 00:33:35.280 --> 00:33:43.100 and truth to your heart. And the elephant says, that feels good. That feels better than being dumb. 00:33:43.099 --> 00:33:52.459 Maybe I'll do that again. This is why it's so important for us to do these things regularly. 00:33:53.079 --> 00:33:58.259 You're being catechized multiple times a day, hours and hours and hours a day by your iPhone, 00:33:58.579 --> 00:34:03.439 way more than you will be by Church of the Advent. And we can't even possibly compete with your phone. 00:34:04.480 --> 00:34:09.299 And so, you have to find other ways of showing the elephant where to eat and drink. 00:34:09.300 --> 00:34:17.019 So, personal renewal is an all-or-nothing commitment to put off the old self and put on the new by putting 00:34:17.019 --> 00:34:26.519 our faith in Jesus. And it's an inside-out change where our minds and our affections, the rider and 00:34:26.519 --> 00:34:32.000 the elephant, become more and more aligned with Jesus. And hopefully, you're picking up on the central 00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:38.720 theme here. All of this is possible only because of Jesus. Jesus who became in every way like us so that 00:34:38.719 --> 00:34:46.759 we might one day become in every way like Him. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for Your Word. 00:34:48.679 --> 00:34:55.259 We thank You for Your Son. We thank You that You're not just offering us a set of beliefs 00:34:55.259 --> 00:35:02.480 or practices even, but that You're the God who has become flesh to feed and nourish us 00:35:02.480 --> 00:35:10.880 with Your body and blood. You're a God who has put Your Spirit in us so that even as we talk about 00:35:10.880 --> 00:35:17.340 these things on a conscious, intellectual, rational level, Your Spirit is interceding for us with 00:35:17.340 --> 00:35:24.300 groanings too deep for words, knowing our deepest needs, interceding and praying on behalf of us 00:35:24.300 --> 00:35:30.440 in ways that we can't even begin to fathom. We pray that our petrified hearts of stone would become 00:35:30.440 --> 00:35:39.080 hearts of flesh. Lord, as Your Word is planted and begins to grow in us. And we pray this in Your 00:35:39.080 --> 00:35:40.760 Son's holy name. Amen. 00:35:40.760 --> 00:35:40.860 Amen. 00:35:42.260 --> 00:35:42.760 Amen. 00:35:42.760 --> 00:35:42.820 Amen. 00:35:42.820 --> 00:35:42.860 Amen. 00:35:42.860 --> 00:35:42.920 Amen. 00:35:42.920 --> 00:35:42.980 Amen. 00:35:42.980 --> 00:35:43.060 Amen. 00:35:43.060 --> 00:35:43.080 Amen. 00:35:43.080 --> 00:35:43.360 Amen. 00:35:43.360 --> 00:35:43.420 Amen.